Navigating the hospitality tech stack: Build, buy, or both?

Moderated by Jo Lynch, Account Director at KAM, the discussion featured insights from Joel Robinson, Founder & CTO at Openr, Tommy Giraux, Head of Restaurant Systems at Honest Burgers, Harry Fielder, CEO at Umi Digital, and James Garner, CEO at Sticky Connections. 

Jo kicked off the discussion by asking about some of the inherent trade-offs between investing in bespoke or external tech solutions. 

Joel, previously Digital & Technology Director at Azzurri Group, shared that the company had a mantra of ‘build for competitive advantage, buy for competitive parity’.  

“We would only build software if we felt there was a unique competitive advantage that we could deliver by building software,” he explained. “Which meant it was very much the exception rather than the rule.  The benefits are pretty obvious: you can do exactly what you want, when you want, but that can get quite exciting, and you can run away with yourself imagining all the incredible possibilities of the app you could build.  

“What people tend to underestimate is the cost of doing that, and then the cost of supporting it. For a business like the Azzurri Group, that turns over about £300 million a year, if you going to build something, you’ve got to be confident it's going to generate at least a seven-figure return on investment, because the cost involved in building and maintaining that is going to be substantial.” 

Jo asked Tommy, coming from a smaller operator in the form of Honest Burger, for his thoughts on build v buy when it comes to tech.  

“We've gone down both roads, and I've burned myself a few times,” Tommy admitted. “Coming out of Covid, we needed to save money and naively thought we could build our own. We hired an external developer, created the whole journey and all the non-negotiables, and six months later we were down about £20k and had nothing to show for it. We parked the project and went on the market and found platforms that do what they do very well.   

“More recently, because we have the resources in-house, we have changed our POS system. Our Head of IT is also a developer, so we built that literally in a couple of weeks and it's fully integrated with our system. Our managers are using it on a daily basis, and we have security in terms of access and that's something that we were able to do quite easily without the need to go external. 

“If you don't have anyone in house that can build it for you, that can maintain it and can support it and train people and make it evolve over time, it can be a very costly exercise to build it in-house.”  

The discussion moved onto the importance of integration, and ensuring different systems are able to talk seamlessly to each other.  

“If you don't have integrations between all your platform, you end up having silos of data in different platforms,” continued Tommy.  “If data cannot flow seamlessly then you don’t have a single source of truth and you end up having to do a manual movement of data. It ends up in discrepancies between platforms, becomes an absolute mess and can be extremely time consuming. Integration is where you need to start before looking at the shinier side of things and all the cool new features.” 

From a supplier point of view, Harry commented on the importance of investing in products with potential for future growth and expansion.

“A lot of the systems out there now have very good connectivity,” he explained. “They've got very solid APIs, so rather than just buying a product for its use now, it’s worth having a really good understanding of what you could do if you were to build on top of it in the future. 

“I do think we need to have a much better appreciation of the technical capabilities of the systems that we choose before we buy them, because most of the time these systems are chosen in isolation. Unless you’re in a company like Azzurri Group there’s very rarely a CTO role making strategic decisions like that for the future.  

James added that within the core Sticky Connections platform everything can be modified by the end user, who can write in their own steps or processes in JavaScript.  

“I think in some cases companies provide APIs which are a bit of an afterthought,” he argued. “We've got much more of an open book approach. We also work with companies like Deliverect which means that we don't have to build all of the IP connecting into these other systems and that helps us go to market quicker. It really helped us raise our seed round of venture capital because we were able to serve enterprise customers with our valuable IP without spending five years building an integration.” 

Solving problems 

The conversation turned to considerations around implementation, with Jo asking Tommy how Honest Burger approaches implementing and scaling new systems within the business.  

“The key in choosing tech is to start with the problem that you’re trying to solve,” he commented. “It's very easy to get blinded by some new shiny features or something that you've seen others using, but if it's not solving ultimately a problem then maybe it has no place.  

“Once we find a platform that actually solves the problem, it's about getting the end user involved early and throughout the selection process, to get their buy-in and perspective.” 

Jo then asked Joel to explain how Openr evolved out of his role at Azzurri Group.  

“Openr was built in response to a problem that Azurri had, which was this diffusion of platforms and systems, whether it's websites, point of sale systems, digital menu boards, kiosks, delivery providers, menu design software etc. All ultimately require the same data at the same time,” he explained. “ 

There was no software solution out there that effectively harmonised all that data and gave you a single platform. We didn't initially set out to build it; we couldn't find anyone that was solving all of the problem, and so we thought we'd build it ourselves. 

“We started what was initially an internal project, but we built it as a SaaS platform. We could ultimately see it was going to be hugely valuable for a business like Azzurri Group but it could be equally as valuable to a company like Stonegate, and they’re now one of our biggest customers.  

“What I always try to do as a technology executive is put in place that long term technology strategy and select the right systems to build on, but more importantly it was about educating the board and helping the organisation understand the value that can be created through technology investments.  

“You're ultimately going to sit in front of a group of stakeholders that are assessing the amount of money that you are spending on technology alongside the amount of money they might invest in a new restaurant or a refurbishment.  

“You have to work on your storytelling and your data evidence. How will you generate a return on the money you're investing in technology and match that up against a new store? 

“The more general lesson is that building technology is always harder, more expensive, and more time consuming than you think it is going to be. We knew very early on that we were ultimately establishing a product function and establishing an engineering function within the organisation. That was a permanently funded cost centre that was going to continue to develop and iterate and support the technology.” 

James added that suppliers have the advantage of seeing what a wide range of operators are requesting and therefore have a better sense of a road map and future needs.  

“The caveat is that it's difficult to serve the needs of all of your different customers, especially if they're cross vertical,” he added “That's the problem that we experience because we don't just serve hospitality; we serve retail, holiday parks, all the way down to solicitors and accountants.” 

Harry added that for Umi Digital, which is a full-service marketing and software development agency, challenges sometimes come in the form of tech briefs from clients not working in a tech field.  

“A huge amount of our effort needs to go into the planning piece, before you even get to the brief” he explained. “12 months ago, we were executing on briefs that were put together by non-technical people. That really did cause a huge amount of problems. Now, we never really start anything unless we've gone through a serious consultative round first. 

“Where I often start in that consultative process is getting the hospitality business, however big or small, to sketch out the ideal, perfect user journey. Then what you're doing is mapping your incumbent systems to that user journey. That effectively creates your gap analysis.  

“Working out where the gaps are is a good place to start when it comes to that ‘build or buy’ strategy. A lot of our projects now are more consultative and it’s great to be part of that initial process.” 

The TechX panel provided a compelling exploration of the strategic considerations behind in-house development versus working with external tech suppliers. Across businesses of all sizes, a consistent theme emerged: the importance of clearly defining the problem to be solved before investing time and resources into technology solutions.

Whether it’s building bespoke systems for long-term competitive advantage, as seen with Openr, or opting for ready-made platforms to ensure efficiency and speed to market, like Honest Burger’s revised POS approach, the panellists reinforced that there is no one-size-fits-all answer. Integration, future-proofing, and involving end users early were all cited as key factors for success.

Ultimately, the conversation underscored that technology decisions should not be driven by trends or features alone, but by a deep understanding of operational needs, ROI potential, and the long-term support structures required, whether those are built in-house or accessed through trusted external partners.